The WSOP Player of the Year award is one of the most prestigious awards in poker. Every year players receive points for cashing in WSOP events, and the player with the most points when the series is over receives the award.

WSOP vice-president, Ty Stewart, recently announced that the way in which players receive points for the award has been changed for 2011. He stated that “it’s been obviously that [their] Player of the Year system needed a little bypass surgery.”

The WSOP decided to use Bluff magazine’s Player of the Year format as a basis for their new model. Bluff’s format has been praised as one of the best leaderboard systems in the industry.

In total 62 events will award points for this leaderboard, including 55 WSOP events and 7 WSOP Europe events. Three WSOP events do not allow points: the Casino Employees Event, the Seniors Championship, and the Ladies Championship.

This is the first time that European events have been eligible for the Player of the Year award. WSOP Europe will take place in Cannes France later on this year.

The number of points you earn for a given cash depends on the buy-in, field size, and where you finish. All the tournaments use the same formula to calculate points with one exception.

To avoid a situation in which the WSOP Main Event champion automatically wins Player of the Year, the Main Event uses a different method to calculate points. Players automatically win a set number of points depending on where they finish.

Hopefully these changes in the point system will prevent the debate that stemmed from last year’s competition. Frank Kassela ended up winning WSOP Player of the Year for his accomplishment of winning two bracelets. Some people argued that Michael Mizrachi should have won it, though, for winning the Player’s Championship and then for making it to the November Nine.